


Let’s Stop Running From-

by miloron (ocoa)



Category: NU'EST
Genre: ...i forgot to write Dongho into this, Coming Out, Denial, Gen, Homophobia, M/M, Panic Attacks, heavily implied 2hyun, im so sorry dongho, implied RiceEmperor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 00:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15084758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocoa/pseuds/miloron
Summary: Hwang Minhyun realises something about himself. He doesn’t quite know whether it’s good





	Let’s Stop Running From-

The day Minhyun wakes up with sweat running down his back and the last edges of feverish lips against his collarbone was in the winter, the soft snores of his fellow trainees nearly drowned out by the hum of the heater. His breath comes short and his face burns, and a part of him feels like gagging when he remembers, distinctively, that the body that was attached to those lips was masculine. That night he feels the first edges of anxiety, and hides it under the blanket of sound created by the presence of ten other bodies, all resting unperturbed while his own racks up with gasping breaths and tears stinging his eyes. His first panic attack, he hid it well.

And maybe it was foreseen, Minhyun hasn’t looked at a girl in the way he should. He can’t. And the idea, a thought he didn’t want to say aloud in fear that it would be true, makes him so scared it shakes him to his core. That winter night, he feels like he’s drowning in the Busan sea, somewhere familiar yet still so terrifying.

In the following days, he seeks out, just for confirmation, shows and music videos about it, just to see, to have a glimpse, to have something tell him that he was mistaken, that he read himself wrongly, that maybe he wasn’t, he wasn’t....

But the words blur and the songs and words only make him question less.

He lets out a sigh. The weight feels permanent.

* * *

Aaron eyes him from across the table, and Minhyun feels his prickly gaze on him, raising the hair on his arm. He pretends he doesn’t see him, and Aaron doesn’t really say anything. The other 3 are blissfully unaware, Dongho and Minki debating about something for their comeback and Jonghyun about the new game he picked up.

When they stand to clear their plates, Minhyun risks looking up and is caught by the serious gaze of their oldest. Aaron let’s out a quiet sigh. “You know you can tell me anything right?”

The words fall out quiet, yet each feel like a knife turned in his chest. He feels his heartbeat quicken and his throat constrict.

He wants to break down, to shout that _he’s gay, he’s gay god dammit_ , but the words die in his throat, and he clenches his fists so hard they feel like they’re shaking but he doesn’t say anything.

Instead, he chokes out a “I’m fine” and stands and walks, each step feeling like there’s iron under his soles. Aaron stares after him, but doesn’t say a word.

* * *

Jonghyun drops himself down onto the floor beside Minhyun as they wrapped up filming for the day. Minhyun startled at the movement, before looking around. Minkyung must have returned to her training.

“Are you okay?” Jonghyun asked, eyes strangely serious even as he sat with his knees pulled to his chest. He looked small, and there’s something in Jonghyun’s eyes, a darkness. It’s been there for a while, Minhyun thinks.

Minhyun nodded. “I’m ok.”

Jonghyun didn’t look convinced, and Minhyun wants to say something but as always his courage fails him. A warm hand settles on shoulder and Jonghyun’s voice, as always, is a soft and comforting presence.

“It’s okay, you know,” And Minhyun’s chest tightens and his pulse picks up, “we’ll always support you, you’re not alone.”

The grip on his shoulder tightens marginally before it disappeared and with it, Jonghyun’s presence.

Minhyun wished he didn’t feel a sense of loss at the thought, his heart gaping open for something to clamp onto, reaching for empty space and the feeling of being alone.

A cup of water is thrust into his face, still warm from the flask their manager must have brought it in. Jonghyun smiles as he raised the cup again, an encouragement for Minhyun to take the cup. “It’s cold,” Jonghyun says, before Minhyun relents and takes the cup.

It’s warm. His heart. His face. And Jonghyun smiles at him, looking like the sun rising from the east, perfectly in place right next to him.

“Minhyunnie, I’m serious,” Jonghyun’s voice is soft and smooth like a whisper, “you’re not alone.”

And Jonghyun’s smile turns conspiring, like they’re sharing a secret.

It’s a lasting image that Minhyun doesn’t forget.

* * *

Even when he moves into a new dormitory, is in a new (albeit temporary) band, days fading in and out with a lack of sleep and too much activity making the adrenaline run high, the thoughts catch up to him.

And maybe Minhyun is being unfair, but the first person he talks about...this... is Jisung.

“You’re scared,” Jisung noted, “that maybe they’ll not see you the same. Maybe they’re too close to you that’s why you don’t want to tell them.”

The smile he gives is fond and nearly fatherly, a smile he’s seen Jisung give to the younger ones. It twists his heart that it was turned to him. It didn’t feel bad.

“It’s not wrong, Minhyun,” the cup of hot honey lemon in his grip is comforting, “to like the same gender. I know a few people who swing the same way.” There’s a secret in that smile, and Minhyun is struck by how similar Jisung’s smile is to Jonghyun’s.

But Jisung’s eyes turn serious and the silence heavier. “However that’s not to say everyone would think it’s okay, Minhyun. Fans, the company, the media, they might turn against you. You’ve seen how the fans act now when they see you with the other Nu’est members,” Minhyun scowls at the thought, “we sell the image of lovers. To know that they can’t have you...”

The silence hangs.

Jisung sighs. “But I support you Minhyun. Do whatever you think is right, you don’t have to say it, but you don’t need to hide either.”

Jisung’s words don’t help him make his decision, but Minhyun never realised that he didn’t need to make one now.

And maybe that was more helpful than any concrete decision that Jisung could have offered.

Jisung gave him a warm smile, ruffling Minhyun’s hair to his chagrin. “If you want I can come with you to talk to them?”

Minhyun sighed, steadfastly playing ignorant to the way his head leaned into Jisung’s hand. “It’s okay,” he says, “this should be something I should tell them with my own mouth.”

“But you don’t have to do it alone.”

Jisung’s hand is warm against his scalp, and even when the weight in his heart remains the same, he feels something tingle under his skin, like his particles are vibrating so fast they want to break from what was keeping him together.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and even when it was so soft he could barely hear himself, Jisung’s smile widens.

* * *

The fans say he’s changed when he comes back to Nu’est. “I can’t place it,” one of his fansites tell him, “you just seem more...centred.”

And centred is the right word, he thinks, because it’s in Wanna One that he learns about what he’d been burying in his heart, of all things from Woojin. He feels more confident, even when he still hasn’t outright told others about his orientation, but it feels right. He tells Sujin over the phone, still somewhat scared of the reaction, but her voice is level and she tells him to come home.

He does, as late as he can, heart in his throat and stomach twisting and turning but the hug his sister gives him is warm and her shoulder is dampened with his gratitude. He’s lucky, he knows, and he feels with so much overflowing in him that he stays the evening and breaks the news to his parents.

It doesn’t turn out as well, and he’s still nursing the red mark when his father comes in and touches where it stings and he nearly flinches from the touch. “I’m sorry,” his father says, voice bordering sob. It doesn’t fix things, but Minhyun knows, they needed time.

The reaction however sets him back months, would have been long if it wasn’t for the fact that Sujin clasps his hand and returns with him to Seoul. “Stay with me,” she says. For the first time in a long time it feels like when they were younger, cup of tea in hand, Mel barking and tagging at their feet.

Time doesn’t move fast when you’re scared, when it feels like you’ve lost something with the sting in your cheek, and Minhyun tries not to pretend that he’s okay.

The day passes until he’s called back, and Sujin wraps her arms around him in an uncharacteristic level of affection.

“You shouldn’t have to hide anything from anyone,” she says, anger and sadness tipping at the edges of her syllabi. “You shouldn’t have to face this sort of thing. You aren’t alone.”

It’s all sort of unprepared and messy, and he’s never really seen his sister this flustered and emotional, so Minhyun forces the whirlpool of emotions in his chest down and smiles the way he always does, disarming. “Yeah.”

She lets go and awkwardly follows it off with a “yeah.”

He goes back to the company, heart hurting and tired and wanting to just...rest. Close his eyes. Go back to before he knew what the feeling was, when it was just a rumbling roll of his stomach. But that was years in the past, and despite everything, he doesn’t know how to react.

He’s blinking back the beginning of tears when Minki appears, apparently having stirred from the sound of the door opening. His sleep blurred vision clears at the sight of him, shoulders hunched, eyes tinged red from the sting of tears and probably looking more haggard than he should.

“Minhyun?”

And because Minki is Minki, he doesn’t wait and sweeps Minhyun in a tight hug that makes something in Minhyun crumble and even as he hates the way he cracks and his weakness at it all, he can’t help it. So he pulls himself into the crook of Minki’s neck and Minki covers him, holding onto him tightly, not saying anything and just letting Minhyun cry.

* * *

It wasn’t always so dark. Before Minhyun knew the words to the feeling he just enjoyed the way a wave of peace rolled over him when he talked to certain people. Or rather, a certain person. When all he wanted was to stay with him, just sit there shoulder to shoulder, talk about the mundane, too warm and yet completely right at the same time. He feels drunk, smiling so wide, teasing and bantering, and it hits him late what that feeling was.

But he enjoyed it, before the words start to have impact, and he tumbled faster and harder, and scrabbled to find a foothold in the feeling called “love”. Suddenly the calm feeling is rocking his boat, and overturning, and overwhelming, and turning him from inside out because he’s wrong and he’s bad, and he tries to shut it off but feelings don’t work like a tap. Jisung had changed that feeling, when he says the words that Minhyun wanted to hear- “you’re not wrong”. But the sourness comes back.

His mother stops talking to him after that night. Jisung calls but he doesn’t answer. Sujin is worse than him at the emotional front. Aaron and Dongho and Ren treat him like he’s fragile, like he’s glass, and as much as he feels like he’s falling apart he doesn’t like to be pitied. And Jonghyun, he acts like they’re still normal, even when they’re not, and Sungsoo is talking to him about having Minhyun take a hiatus from their next comeback.

Jonghyun pats the seat next to him.

Sometimes normal is what he needs.

He thinks.

Or at least, just for that moment, brushing against Jonghyun’s shoulder, the delicate illusion of normal hanging over them, he wants to deny it.

To not feel it bubbling under his skin.

He asks Jonghyun about why he looked so tired. Jonghyun stutters out a laugh, and starts to talk about an anime he was watching the night before.

Minhyun feels like he can breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry if I ended up offending anyone about this. I had a longer note written for this, but well, I am not quite sure how to explain I guess. I don’t particularly have a reason for writing this, I just felt the need to, for myself. 
> 
> I doubt I would continue this after I post this. The open ended ending is well...a choice. 
> 
> Anyway, I hoped it doesn’t get too complicated, or that it was harmful in any way. Good night :’)
> 
> > Follow me on twitter @kwaks43!


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